


Me Tangere

by Cyrelia_J



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Reality, Anxiety, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Intersex Parmak, Kid Fic, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Sexual Content, Pregnancy, Rare Pairings, Unconventional Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 11:28:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14893776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyrelia_J/pseuds/Cyrelia_J
Summary: Sequel to "Dear Jessie"Ten years after moving to Cardassia, Jack often finds himself reflecting on all the Good things in his life. He's sure to keep his timers for them all as long and strange of a journey as it was to get here. Two and a half kids, one Kelas, and a perfect morning in the garden; and he still can’t quite believe it’s all real.Kelas looks back at him and there’s this soft little smile, this look on his face that’s identical to the one he gave him in the Replimat the day they met, when Jack said he was blind, and that Cardassia needed better optometrists if he couldn’t tell the difference between Jack and Julian with those spectacles and......I love you the more in that I believe you had liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.Background Garak/BashirPreviously posted on Tumblr now with some edits and minor additions





	Me Tangere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zombified_queer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombified_queer/gifts).



> All the notes on this version of Parmak and a few mentions on the world can be found in the previous story so I wont rehash them here. I really do enjoy writing Jack and in ways he's very relatable for me. I also do like this pairing so you can expect to see more stories in different universes and iterations as well. I want to thank everyone for giving some of these more off beat ideas a chance and I am always open to C&C :)

Juggling was one of the first things that he learned to do when he became aware that he was “different”. “Different”, was his mother’s word. His father used to have all sorts of euphemisms - some of them more cutting than others depending on the latest profit margins or the moon in Jupiter - that he would use aside from “different”. The servants, the black and whites rushing around their sprawling estate like something from his beloved old movies, called him “Master Jonathan”. Behind his back, his sensitive ears heard them whispering disapproval for the “unfortunate result” of his old man’s lawbreaking. As for him? He called himself Jack, like jack of all trades, using his middle name instead of the old boring “John J”.

 

His father would say that juggling was a Supreme Waste (Jack’s mind was always sure to supply the necessary capitals!) of the gifts that he’d been given. Jack said since the old man paid all that money he should be able to do everything the old bastard wanted and still have time left for his own interests. The old man said that time didn’t have a care that he was enhanced, and time was something even he couldn’t afford to waste. Jack retorted that if he didn’t sleep he’d have all the time in the world. The old man didn’t have an answer to that one, Jack winning, the score 21 to 7 by that time. He learned to juggle eleven knives at once by the time he was thirteen.

Time, time was something the old man used to rail about constantly. “ _Brevis tui tempu est,_ ” his old man would drone at him while his mother smiled, and told him to listen because the old bastard was very wise. He’d go on about a lot of things- often, frequently, all the time Very Loudly until Jack started hiding from him. Then, Jack would consider the matter of time on one of the high branches of the old trees surrounding their ancient lands. They couldn’t easily reach him there; then the old man ordered every one of them cut down. The old sonofabitch was out of luck when Jack took to scrambling up to the eaves and overhangs of the roof instead.

 

Jack figured that mutants like him should live longer if anything. Wasn’t a fair portion of the justification for their very existence being illegal the matter of genetic superiority? The old man didn’t like his Truths contradicted. He fired decrees from behind the old mahogany desk like a red faced angry god. That desk was huge. It was austere like the old man himself who was a terrible picture of thick dark eyebrows and dark eyes, sometimes turning into some giant owl in Jack’s vision. Other times he’d morph to The General, an arrogant swine in man’s finery, telling him how some animals were more equal than others.

 

Jack was more equal than others. Jack was Special. Jack was the investment of a lifetime - buy sell buy! And then one day when it as especially nice outside, the old man jumped out the window just like one of those old fat cats in the twentieth century. Well he didn’t jump so much as was pushed, but that wasn’t anyone’s business but Jack’s and God’s, and there was no God so it was Jack’s and Jack’s alone, damn right! Ah, amend that amend that; his business was his bondmate’s business too. Bondmate, husband, jailer, warden... No! That is an Incorrect thought with a capital “I”! Those Incorrect thoughts are fewer and fewer nowadays.  _Correct_  thought: Kelas is… _everything_. Kelas, Jessie, Kiss, and now-

 

“Focus.” Jack hears the child’s voice and looks down, seeing his oldest looking up at him. He sets down all four of the small stone pots he’s been juggling, one after the other onto the sand. Jessie is nearly five now, and is old enough that ze recognizes when Jack’s mind needs to be tugged back with a small cue. Kelas taught zem that, starting it as a little game at first, his brilliant Jessie picking it up so quickly. 

 

 _Second Correction_ , Jack thinks, _their_ child. That’s the correction that he makes. He’s gotten much better at those Johnny on the spot mental corrections since he met Kelas over ten years ago. He looks over to Kelas kneeling in the sand next to their second child, Kiss. “Kiss”, because Jessie couldn’t say “Kesya” when ze was first born. Kelas is adding water to the white sand to make a castle little by little. Jack’s goddamn genius – is he or isn’t he a mutant little smirk ‘wouldn’t you like to know?’- bondmate, is four months pregnant with their third child.

Kelas looks back at him and there’s this soft little smile, this look on his face that’s identical to the one he gave him in the Replimat the day they met, when Jack said he was blind, and that Cardassia needed better optometrists if he couldn’t tell the difference between Jack and Julian with those spectacles and... shit... God there’s no God, no proof for God except that smile. Jack had yelled at him with a jump off the table, and Kelas had just laughed, and then Jack was right there in his face, and he’d stopped. He looked down, because he was just a little taller than Jack, but he wasn’t afraid, instead looking like Jack’s outburst was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen…  _I love you the more in that I believe you had liked me for my own sake and for nothing else._  No, that’s Keats, not God Jesus, Mary, and Joseph same difference!

 

Jack thrives on the exercise he gets in that sprawling sand garden. It’s an artistic display of succulents and other desert plants, resembling one of the Zen gardens he’s seen pictures of, making it a magical place like falling through a looking glass and finding the gardens of  _Ginkaku-ji_ on the other end instead of Underland. Well, missing most of the coveted trees, but he and Kelas and their family have spent years sculpting the land to this quiet beauty, this fantastic dreamscape brought to life, and why couldn’t the old man pay for some natural artistic painting enhancement?! Because Jack can speak every language he tries to learn, but he can’t capture Kelas or his children in more than memories. 

 

Ah right, thats because life isn’t perfect, and if it was it would be dull, and Jack is Absolutely  _not_  dull. He’s the Best Daddy, as Jessie says and Kiss repeats, and their children aren’t liars so that’s that! Life isn’t perfect but now it’s Worth It. Every morning Jack is out here barefoot in his loose trousers -how novel is that for him of all people not to be wearing a shirt?- giving thanks quietly before he continues with katas, with tumbles, with sweat drenched calisthenics before the sun is too high, and his pale skin in has to be doused and drenched in sunscreen. Jack  _hates_ the feel of sunscreen.

 

He usually makes a spectacle as he walks around the city with his big black UV filtering umbrella.

 

Sometimes Jessie likes to drag the rake through the sand to make the patterns in the shared garden; this one is more secluded, closer to their modest dwelling than the others. Sometimes ze and Kiss fight over the rake. Sometimes Jack joins in too, though more often than not Kelas  _thwaps_  his shoulder with a book and tells him playfully to behave. Kelas will then raise the big tome kissing him long and sweetly behind it, those full lips begging to be bitten ‘til they’re flushed dark gray. 

 

It’s one of many games they like to play, kissing until one or both kids yell “Aha!” declaring they’ve been spotted. They laugh when the book lowers, and Jack is red, and Kelas is just beaming with his glasses half askew. They have endless ridiculous little games they play, and Jack is always amazed by how Good this is. Jack doesn’t remember his parents ever… doesn’t remember old George and Martha ever… old swampy ever being anything but cold to each - other snip snap at the table clattering spoons and little presses of napkins to mouths.

“Right here, Jessie Jess hmhm. Your turn?” he asks going to one knee, letting himself be knocked backwards when ze yells “yes!”, because they’re outdoors and outdoors they can be loud as they want. He gives a good dramatic death yell as his back hits the ground, holding his baby close a moment as he falls. Almost five, Jessie always corrects him, not a baby! Four years nine months nine days ten hours five minutes three seconds... and Jack watches his mouth, ensuring that any kisses are quick Cardassian presses of two fingers – index and middle – to each other. Things around his mouth make Jack anxious because he wants to nip and that leads to gnawing, to biting and that’s only acceptable if it’s Kelas.

His mother, when her dress wasn’t over her head, was very particular about his Appearance, about his poise and grooming and especially his Eating. He was always hungry, always moving, and when he stopped sleeping it only became worse. He stole food, hid is, learned what he could forage so that the pains in his stomach would stop. His mother was sure they knew at The Institute that he had Problems with food and they kept it carefully regulated there as well. He learned to pretend that his hand, his fingers were a meal, something nice, pleasant, the salt on his tongue satisfying that urge. He’s rarely without a stick of something to gnaw but still that... habit persists. 

 

Sometimes Kiss or Jessie will give him little nips to the rings on his fingers to show affection and he… doesn’t know how he feels about that. They don’t have the same pains in their tummies that he used to, and it’s special and _theirs,_ but it’s not  _typical_  as Bashir says with those castigating hidden expressions that he thinks that Jack can’t see. Bashir also says it isn’t  _healthy_  for their children to see the marks and the blood when he and Kelas kiss hard, but they don’t get upset, they only laugh at how silly  _yadek_  and his red mouth look and… and Jack is Careful! 

 

He’s always careful with the two of them because he would sooner die than hurt them, and Kelas will tell him that he’s too conscientious, too delicate, and it isn’t necessary to self-flagellate, and if he doesn’t knock it off he’s going to start calling him “Dimmesdale” - which is absurd because Kelas is no Hester Prynne in any sense of the character and he should understand that it absolutely  _is_  necessary to be careful because he broke too many children when  _he_  wasa child even if he didn’t mean it and-

 

“Focus.” Jessie repeats, this time with a tap to his nose giving him a terribly weighty look; Jessie takes “helping daddy fix his head” very seriously. Jack blinks and nods. That’s a very serious second warning there!

“Right! We’re going upside down today hmhm?” Jessie nods excited, scampering off him, jumping at Jack the moment he stands back up. Jack catches zem easily around the waist, his baby a little monkey climbing up his shoulders, and he breathes in the arid desert air deeply. 

 

The air on Cardassia brings him alive even if it is warmer than he’s used to. Kelas says with a face, a precious Kelas face that he makes when something irritates him - cute, so cute will always be adorable a hundred two hundred, Jack doesn’t care - that the air of Nokar is the purest. Jack knows that Kelas still thinks about going back, away from Central, away from the southern continents to the Steppe, and Jack thinks it’s the funniest thing that a Cardassian would long for the cold, but he understands it’s so much more than that.

Kelas is a misfit, a mutant too but a damn perfect one and Jack will fight anyone who disagrees.

But for all the stares, hostile comments, and rude questions, Jack has never found a place more of a home than Cardassia Prime. Bashir, passing normal Federation mutt Bashir, asked him if he didn’t miss all the comforts of the Federation. Didn’t he long for the food, the culture, the people who didn’t glare or condescend, saying that _he_ found it preferable when people “had the decency to whisper their nastiness” instead of putting it in his face, and Jack had an epiphany. It was brilliant. He wrote it down. He was pleased with it. He read it to Kelas, read it to Lauren and Patrick and Sarina, and a full audience at home around an evening bonfire to cheers and chirps in fact!

 

Bashir wasn’t a mutant passing as normal, he was a basic passing as One of Them and he didn’t belong on Cardassia Prime anymore than Jack belonged in the Federation. So of course Jack didn’t read it to Bashir because Bashir wouldn’t get it, wouldn’t want to _quarrel_ about it, and the hell with him anyway! Jack didn’t have a lifetime of Federation comforts. He had a prison, he had walls and bars and “do this do that step jump sit behave be Normal!” He had a lifetime of people backing away from him, making the sign of the damn cross and ha joke’s on them, mutants aren’t vampires and he could  _still_  bite throats out no matter how much garlic they used!

Jack grins big and wide, toothy as he wants when he looks at his children, when he looks at his Kelas, and there’s nothing, no drug, no “Federation comforts” no religion,  _nothing_  that could ever bring him the high that their fearless answering smiles brings him. He walks through the streets with every damn one of these Cardassian Morlocks meeting him with a level stare, a sneer, and a challenge to prove that he’s their equal. They challenge him when he recites his poetry. They aren’t afraid to shove at him in the crowded markets. They’re not afraid of confrontation; they revel in it. Every Sunday morning Jack going into the city to argue with the same old woman selling flowers about every damn thing in the world, and even she doesn’t shrink back when he’s loud. There’s no “shut up”, no “behave”, no belts no smacks to the mouth, nothing but the same irritated arguments that they fling at each other. 

Jack keeps grinning like a damn idiot as he looks up, feeling Jessie putting small hands in his, ready to be raised up to the top of Mount Parnassus to meet the fabled muses. Jack can see a bit of a tremble of zes arms, but he shouts encouragement, a babbling string as his little hatchling - Kelas says “hatchling” though they’re not properly hatched but that’s pedantic so shut up Jack! - turns himself upside down, holding a count of five before ze flops, Jack catching zem easily, the both of them laughing. 

 

It’s a life he never dreamed that he could have, and no amount of holofeeds of the “successful augment doctor” like old technicolor popcorn matinee propaganda reels, could ever convince him that he and that stupid smiling thing would ever be the same. As long as he lives, Julian will never know what it’s like to have people afraid of him and fuck him anyway. The sharp sound of a clap catches his sensitive ears, head jerking, that instinct relaxing in a split second when he sees it’s only Kelas applauding him. 

Applause isn’t a Cardassian custom, occasionally chirrups or a stamp of feet signify massive approval, but Kelas thought the gesture was novel when he learned of it. Jack sees Kiss following along after him when he sets Jessie down. His children love “doing acrobatics with Daddy” and he’s just in awe of how far ahead their development is without being augmented. He teaches the children in their little community they’ve built too, and he’s not just biased when he says that Kiss and Jessie are the best of the excitable lot.

 

“That’s my Jessie Jess hm! Shoot off the guns like Buffalo Bill! There’s a cowboy hm hm! We’ll have you swallowing swords for Emperor Wu mmhm!”

“Ze’s going to be a doctor!” Kelas calls out emphatically with that irritated face.

“Then an acrobat doctor hm. Think of the money you’d pull in adding a few flips to your routine hm. Climb that Bashir beanstalk like a diving board hm hm hop skip splash!”

“Splash!” That’s from Kiss before diving into the half-finished sand castle, an explosion of wet sand everywhere on both zem and Kelas. Kelas laughs even as he spits out a mouthful of sand. 

“Ah, right, definitely sticking with my usual practice, I think,” Kelas says brushing sand from his lap. 

 

Jack is sure that his face hurts from smiling, Jessie running past him bowling clear into the mess, into Kiss, with a yell of “Splash!”. The two tumble around with their little growls play fighting, a little tinkling of beads reaching his ears too as they clank together. Jessie is slim, all limbs like Kelas, a wiry little worm as the two of them wrestle. It seems that Kiss will take after him, stockier, strong - nearly as strong as Jessie at three years six months fifteen days five hours nineteen minutes three seconds. 

 

Jack’s head is a constant count of every moment of their lives, because every atomic second passing by is one that he wants to be thankful for. Kelas suggested, when Jack told him about the incessant numbers and figures and unwanted thought intrusions, that he might fill the space with everything positive in his life that he wants to track instead. He challenged Jack to fill his head so full to bursting with other metrics, other data and numbers to track that there isn’t room for anything else. So he does. 

 

Now his head is full of clocks of all colors, dimensions, and motifs. There’s a clock to count his children’s’ ages, one to track the time since he and Kelas met, one for the time since number three (working title “Seska”, still in progress) was conceived, another to keep the time since the community where they live was completed, and still another for the time since their petition was approved for Lauren, Patrick, and Sarina to be remanded to their care (take that Nursed Ratched!) That barely begins to scratch the surface of clocks for events, counting numbers endlessly flashing, but these are Good numbers. 

 

They’re good numbers, good thoughts, adding to his usual mental jumble superseding the more problematic Clutter. Pulsing beneath the clocks floating along the abalone sea swimming in his head are the Impulses. They blink just beneath the surface, little hands that pull at his limbs, putt at his arms and legs, tug at his mouth, and make his body act outside his thoughts. Those impulses are what make Bashir say that he’s Dangerous, because Bashir doesn’t have those those Defects. Jack knows, and he doesn’t need anyone telling him. Sometimes he locks up, desperately afraid to act at all, quiet and still until he can pull himself out of it.

 

Jack has one of those Impulses now, but it’s not a violent one. He hasn’t had a violent one in years, and that one had a very specific trigger. It was Elim Garak and it  _wasn’t_  his fault no matter what Bashir said! That was one of the worst ones. That was the last one and Not His Fault! It was Garak’s fault and Jack  _hates_  that Bashir thinks it’s some alpha male posturing poppycock that’s completely beneath him, but according to Kelas it’s not on his place to speak to Bashir on the wicked devil that he’s married. ( _Le Démon ! - c'est un Démon, vous savez, ce n'est pas un homme_. - that’s Rimbaud predicting the wicked Morlock centuries in advance!).

The first time that Jack saw Kelas look at Garak, stop, panic, swallow and nearly take a step back terrified he lost it. he blanked out, he didn’t think at all. His hand was already moving for Garak’s throat before any of them could stop him. Bashir had tackled him, but Bashir wasn’t as fast as him, or as strong as him, and if it wasn’t for Kelas coming between them asking him softly to stop, they’d see just how dangerous an augment that he was! Anyone who scares his Kelas like that… anyone who causes his Kelas to flinch like that, anyone who makes that flash of fear cloud over his eyes is a devil no ifs and or buts and they’re dead!

 

They used to tell him that he didn’t have empathy, that he was a monster incapable of understanding other people, and he almost  _almost_  believed them. But if Frankenstein’s creature wasn’t a monster... if Jack could weep silently, his head buried in Kelas’ lap when Kelas told him softly what Garak’s old iron monkey on his back, what the old man Tain had done that had made Kelas have that fear then he... no... no bad thoughts, not now. It doesn’t matter that they flash as quickly as the tic of a clock. This is a Good place and a Good day and they’re  _banished!_

 

When Jack has that Impulse now it’s a Good impulse to join in that raucous. It comes when he turns to Kelas, seeing him shaking the sand off of the long sleeveless tunic he’s wearing. Their eyes meet a moment, Jack silently communicating his intention, catching those blue almost violet eyes widen.

“Splash,” Jack says in a rush, and his mind yells at him careful careful, but he’s already moving with his hands on Kelas’ shoulders pushing him back to the sand. He forces a correction of that recrimination, that  _caution he’s pregnant he’s old he’s delicate he’s…_  laughing as Jack lands on top of him. 

 

Kelas is laughing loudly.

“Ah I should have known you were going to wait until the sand was gone. You always love getting me dirty!” He exclaims with mirth as Jack in a rush of expelled nerves puts his face into Kelas’ neck sure he’s getting sand in his own hair now. Kelas reminds Jack at least twice a day that he won’t hurt him. He reminds him that he may be over a hundred, but that doesn’t quite mean the same in their years, and in any case their skeletons are more dense and durable. 

 

Sometimes he demonstrates that durability which Jack loves. Sometimes Jack even believes it himself. Jack lifts his head about to answer, but Kelas is already turning, kissing him silly, breathless, swearing at him in that melodic Northern tongue that’s like a slip of hisses, or angry snakes circling his ears. 

“…sorry,” Jack says instinctively because sorry is what they always told him to say when he Did Something, and he said it so much he used to like to see how much of a curse he could put behind those words rather than contrition.

“No you’re not,” Kelas is trying not to smile, his hands sliding sandy, gritty over Jack’s sticky sweaty back holding him there on top. “Mmm but that’s alright. I think your punishment should be to finish what you started.”

“Yadek has one baby you can’t give him one yet, Daddy!” he hears Jessie yelling at him, and that only makes Kelas laugh even louder, the lines around his eyes crinkling, ridges flushing darker as he just… beams up at Jack.

“Ah well… perhaps we’ll have to wait then,” Kelas says not moving his hands from Jack’s back in the slightest. His hands are strong, slightly calloused with the work that he does in the lab with Lauren now. He kneads at the muscles with determination and Jack feels like he might pool into goo dripping, soaking into the sand or into Kelas. That’s an idea- totally perfect idea.

 

“That right hm? No making new babies til this one’s done hm hm?”

“Can’t have two at once,” Jessie confirms terribly seriously. Jack sighs in contentment while Kelas keeps kneading at his back. Well, his little hatchling may have a numerical point, but there’s always room for more practice because number three took so long it surely was because they hadn’t practiced enough ,and number four… ah impractical meandering illogical thoughts but-

“Maybe if we make you into an ovipositor... I bet Sarina could do it,” He hears Lauren’s voice and doesn’t ask how long she’s been standing there. Lauren is like the wind, flitting in, out, hot, cold, but always there in some form. He doesn’t say that she’s like his sister but he hears their neighbors calling her that without correction, and it’s strange but it’s Good, and there’s a counter running for the first time someone called her his sister: three years two months five days four hours eighteen minutes thirty four seconds… 

 

“An ovipositor? Ha! Next, you’ll be claiming you made the Kranessans fly hm!” The Kranessans, he learned were famed for their elaborate zip lines through the mountain passes, seeming to soar through the air like birds.

“And  _you_  couldn’t make old Jala a rich woman if you tried,” she fires back with an arch of her eyebrow holding out her hands, only to have Jessie and Kiss rush past her towards their house. She shrugs with a sigh. “I’ll see that they get to their lesson. Mr. Gok is teaching today and…” She pauses there, letting the old familiar rejoinder slip away unsaid. It’s become more of a small joke between them now.

 

There’s buzzing that Jack hears just then, and he watches as a large dragonfly with gold double wings glistening in the sunlight as it hovers into the yard. It’s the little attendance drone, one of Patrick’s dozens of creations flying, beeping, walking around their compound. The newly elected Council had relaxed restrictions on sedition and unlawful assembly years back. That had allowed him and Kelas to work tirelessly to build one of the first communal living spaces outside of Central. 

 

There were more that had cropped up since then. Their loosely connected communes were always monitored for radicals, but soon more sprang up. With those shared spaces came more Northern expats with their family dining halls, communal spaces and sand gardens, and families sharing the grounds outside their modest homes. They were starting to become more accepted fixtures outside the main Southern cities. Well, as acceptable as any Northerner and outcast refuse could be, but there was no better refuse and no better life for him!

 

Jack reaches up to sign off on the PADD held by the dragonfly, to confirm that Jessie and Kiss will be in class today outside with the other children. He snorts, thinking of old Jala and older Gisha (and how Kelas gets so hotly indignant when he calls them that saying they’re hardly older than he is) always hovering around, chattering whenever he and Kelas make love. He’s heard them over stone walls, through fences, once catching their eyes with a curious blink before they waved him on and that… isn’t Normal, he thinks. But then he’ll catch other couples or other triads outside their homes, together in some partly secluded space with little mind paid to who else might see. 

Kelas is always loud and Lauren says the two old Northerners have a bet. Jala and Gisha are always jabbering at each other about whether it’s better or worse for fertility if one is silent or loud. Jala thinks silent. Gisha thinks loud. Jala has yet to win once though on a few pitying occasions Kelas has tried, starting with soft hitches of breath muffled into a sleeve that inevitably morphed to gasps then frantic cries. Lauren frequently offers her input into the discussion for fun, and a few times Jack is sure she’d even thrown a few credits into that as well. 

 

Lauren lets them know before they start that she has her data prepared whenever Kelas is ready to go over their new formulations. The two of them have devised a line of what they call “perfume tonics”: fragrant and flavorful particles that confer different effects when “scented” from the air. They were Lauren’s idea and sometimes she’ll spray a little for calm or ardor as is her whimsy. He almost thinks she’s sprayed one now. Kelas looks thoughtful as he hooks an ankle around the small of Jack’s back, pushing that swollen belly up against him completely undoing him. No, that’s not perfume, that’s all Kelas.

 

“Thirty minutes should be enough,” Jack hears Kelas say, thinking  sand is nice beneath his bare feet, but a cruel menace elsewhere. Right, new strategy, new mode of attack warranted! His hands are already beneath Kelas’ hip with a hurried murmur of “other leg other leg,” getting to his knees. Kelas wraps around him like a beautiful pale vine, his hair half out of it braid, those glasses already mussed. Jack thinks he hears some impressed click from the other side of the wood fence marveling at his augmented strength as he lifts Kelas easily.

 

He prefers to take it slow, to savor every touch, every press of Kelas’ mouth to his chest, every sigh, every push into Kelas’ body and Kelas into his when that mood strikes. Time is short, so short, but the longer he can drag every perceived moment out, the closer he draws to immortality in a beautiful vacuum, where seconds aren’t ticks but instead Kelas’ breaths and slow steady heartbeats. Ah, but now time is a rush and it always surprises him how excited his body is for Kelas in ways it is for nothing else. 

 

The old women think they’ve seen strength? They haven’t seen anything! Jack holds Kelas’ full weight with one arm now, panting quickly, tugging himself free from trousers, from undergarments. Kelas is already whining as Jack starts biting his shoulder ridges where the fabric of his loose tunic has slipped down, as Jack hitches the hem of that garment up with his free hand. It’s a magnificent dance they’ve performed so many times that Kelas shifts into position in time with Jacks movements. There’s that loud stilted cry when Jack enters him halfway, followed by another hiss as he readjusts with both hands on his ass like he weighs nothing, and finally completed with a drawn out moan of his name when Jack drives right deep to his center.

And for that moment, time stops for Jack completely.


End file.
